AN     ADDRESS 


SETTING  FORTH  THE  DECLARATION   OF   THE   IMMEDI- 
ATE CAUSES  WHICH  INDUCE  AND  JUSTIFY  THE 


SECESSION  OF  MISSISSIPPI 


FROM   THE 


FEDEEAL  UNION 


AND    THE 


ORDINANCE  OF  SECESSION. 


JACKSON: 
MISSISSirFIAN  book  and  job  printing  office. 

1861. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2011  with  funding  from 
Duke  University  Libraries 


http://www.archive.org/details/addresssettingfo01miss 


AN     ADDRESS 


SETTING  FORTH  THE  DECLARATION  OF   THE  IMMEDI- 
ATE CAUSES  WHICH  INDUCE  AND  JUSTIFY  THE 


SECESSION  OF  MISSISSIPPI 


FROM  THE 


FEDERAL  UNION 


AND    THE 


ORDINANCE  OF  SECESSION. 


JACKSON: 

MISSIBSIPriAN   BOOK   AND  JOB    PRINTING'  OFFICE. 
1861. 


/ 
7  7  3,7/  3  / 
M"  f>  7  fr 


A  DECLARATION 

OF  2m*  immedia  te  ca  uses  which ind  uge 

AND  JUSTIFY  THE  SECESSION  OF  THE 
STATE  OF  MISSISSIPPI  FROM  THE  FED- 
ERAL UNION. 


In  the  momentous  step  which  our  State  has  taken  of  dis- 
solving its  connection  with  the  government  of  which  we  so 
long  formed  a  part,  it  is  but  just  that  we  should  declare  the 
prominent  reasons  which  have  induced  our  course. 

Our  position  is  thoroughly  identified  with  the  institution 
of  slavery — the  greatest  material  interest  of  the  world.  Its 
labor  supplies  the  product  which  constitutes  by  far  the  larg- 
est and  most  important  portions  of  the  commerce  of  the 
earth.  These  products  are  peculiar  to  the  climate  verging 
on  the  tropical  regions,  and  by  an  imperious  law  of  nature, 
none  but  the  black  race  can  bear  exposure  to  the  tropical 
sun.  These  products  have  become  necessities  of  the  world, 
and  a  blow  at  slavery  is  a  blow  at  commerce  and  civiliza- 
tion. That  blow  has  been  long  aimed  at  the  institution, 
and  was  at  the  point  of  reaching  its  consummation.  There 
was  no  choice  left  us  but  submission  to  the  mandates  of  abo- 
lition, or  a  dissolution  of  the  Union,  whose  principles  had 
be*n  subverted  to  work  out  our  ruin. 

I— '     *>       ft     —      ««\         CL> 


That  we  do  not  overstate  the  dangers  to  our  Institution,  s 
reference  to  a  few  facts  will  sufficiently  prove. 

The  hostility  to  this  institution  commenced  before  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  and  was  manifested  in  the 
well-known  Ordinance  of  1787,  in  regard  to  the  North- 
western Territory. 

The  feeling  increased,  until,  in  1819-20,  it  deprived  the 
South  of  more  than  half  the  vast  territory  acquired  from 
France. 

The  same  hostility  dismembered  Texas  and  seized  upon 
all  the  territory  acquired  from  Mexico. 

It  has  grown  until  it  denies  the  right  of  property  in 
slaves,  and  refuses  protection  to  that  right  on  the  high  seas, 
in  the  Territories,  and  wherever  the  government  of  the 
United  States  had  jurisdiction. 

It  refuses  the  admission  of  new  slave  States  into  the 
Union,  and  seeks  to  extinguish  it  by  confining  it  within  its 
present  limits,  denying  the  power  of  expansion. 

It  tramples  the  original  equality  qf  the  South  under  foot. 

It  has  nullified  the  Fugitive  Slave  Law  in  almost  every 
free  State  in  the  Union,  and  has  utterly  broken  the  compact 
which  our  fathers  pledged  their  faith  to  maintain. 

It  advocates  negro  equality,  socially  and  politically,  and 
promotes  insurruction  and  incendiarism  in  our  midst. 

It  has  enlisted  its  press,  its  pulpit  and  its  schools  against 
us,  until  the  whole  popular  mind  of  the  North  is  excited  and 
inflamed  with  prejudice. 

Jt  has  made  combinations  and  formed  associations  to  carry 
put  its  schemes  of  emancipation  in  the  States  and  wherever 
else  slavery  exists. 

It  seeks  not  to  elevate  or  to  support  the  shave,  but  to  des- 
troy his  present  condition  without  providing  a  better. 

It  has  invaded  a  State,  and  invested  with  the  honors  of 
martyrdom  the  wretch  whose  purpose  was  to  apply  flames 
to  our  dwellings,  and  the  weapons  of  destruction  to  qua* 
lives, 


•4' 


\ 


Jt  lias  broken  every  eompacl  into  which  it  lias  entered  Col- 
our .security. 

It  has  given  indubitable  evidence  of  its  design  to  ruin 
our  agriculture,  to  prostrate  our  industrial  pursuits  and  to 
destroy  our  social  system. 

It  knows  no  relenting  or  hesitation  in  its  purposes  ;  it, 
stops  not  in  its  march  of  aggression,  and  leaves  us  no  room 
to  hope  for  cessation  or  for  pause. 

it  has  recently  obtained  control  of  the  Government,  by 
the  prosecution  of  its  unhallowed  schemes,  and  destroyed 
the  last  expectation  of  living  together  in  friendship  and 
brotherhood. 

Utter  subjugation  awaits  us  in  the  Union,  if  Ave  should 
consent  longer  to  remain  in  it.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  choice, 
but  of  necessity.  We  must  either  submit  to  degradation, 
and  to  the  loss  of  property  worth  four  billions  of  money,  or 
we  must  secede  from  the  Union  framed  by  our  fathers,  to 
secure  this  as  well  as  every  other  species  of  property.  For 
far  less  cause  than  this,  our  fathers  separated  from  the 
Crown  of  England. 

Our  decision  is  made.  We  follow  their  footsteps.  We 
embrace  the  alternative  of  separation  ;  and  for  the  reasons 
here  stated,  we  resolve  to  maintain  our  rights  with  the  full 
consciousness  of  the  justice  of  our  course,  and  the  undoubt- 
ing  belief  of  our  ability  to  maintain  it. 


PZ^7Z8- 


AN  ORDINANCE 


TO  DISSOLVE  THE  UNION  BETWEEN  THE 
STATE  OF  MISSISSIPPI  AND  OTHER 
STATES  UNITED  WITH  HER  UNDER  THE 
COMPACT  ENTITLED  UTHE  CONSTITU- 
TION OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF 
AMERICA:1 


The  people,  of  the  State  of  Mississippi,  in  Convention  assem- 
bled, do  ordain  and  declare,  and  it  is  hereby  ordained  and 
declared  as  follows,  to-icit: 

Section  1st,  That  all  the  laws  and  ordinances  by  which 
the  said  State  of  Mississippi  became  a  member  of  the  Fed- 
eral Union  of  the  United  States  of  America  be,  and  the 
same  are  hereby  repealed,  and  that  all  obligations  on  the 
part  of  the  said  State  or  the  people  thereof  to  observe  the 
same,  be  withdrawn,  and  that  the  said  State  doth  hereby 
resume  all  the  rights,  functions  and  powers  which,  by  any  of 
said  laws  or  ordinances,  were  conveyed  to  the  government 
of  the  said  United  States,  and  is  absolved  from  all  the  obli- 
gations, restraints  and  duties  incurred  to  the  said  Federal 
Union,  and  shall  from  henceforth  be  a  free,  sovereign  and 
independent  State. 

Section  2nd.  That  so  much  of  the  first  section  of  the 
seventh  article  of  the  Constitution  of  this  State  as  requires 
members  of  the  Legislature,  and  all  officers,  executive  and 
judicial,  to  take  an  oath  or  affirmation  to  support  the  Con- 
stitution of  the  United  States,  be,  and  the  same  is  hereby 
abrogated  and  annulled. 


Section  3rd.  That  all  rights  acquired  and  vested  wader 
the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  or  under  any  act  of 
Congress  passed,  or  treaty  made,  in  pursuance  thereof,  or 
under  any  law  of  this  State,  and  not  incompatible  with  this 
Ordinance,  shall  remain  in  force  and  have  the  same  effect  as 
if  this  Ordinance  had  not  been  passed. 

Section  4th.  That  the  people  of  the  State  of  Mississippi 
hereby  consent  to  form  a  Federal  Union  with  such  of  the 
States  as  may  have  seceded  or  may  secede  from  the  Union 
of  the  United  States  of  America,  upon  the  basis  of  the  pre- 
sent Constitution  of  the  said  United  States,  except  such 
parts  thereof  as  embrace  other  portions  than  such  seceding 
States. 

Thus  ordained  and  declared  in  Convention  the  9th  day  of 
January,  in  the  Year  of  Our  Lord  One  Thousand  Eight 
Hundred  and  Sixty-one. 

W.  S.  BARRY,  President. 
F.  A.  Pope,  Secretary, 

IN  TESTIMONY  of  the  passage  of  which,  and  the  de- 
termination  of  the  members  of  this  Convention  to  uphold  and 
'maintain  the  State  in  the  position  she  has  assumed  by  said 
Ordinance,  it  is  signed  by  the  President  and  Members  of  this 
Convention  this  the  fifteenth  day  of  January,  A.  D.,  1861, 

Adams  County — A.  K.  Farrar,  J.  Winchester. 

Attala — E.  H.  Sanders. 

Amite — D.  W.  Hurst. 

Bolivar — M.  H.  McGehee. 

Carroll — J.  Z.  George,  W.  Booth. 

Claiborne— H.  T.  Ellett. 

Coahoma — J.  L.  Alcorn. 

Copiah — P.  S.  Catching,  B.  King. 

Clarke— -S.  H.  Terra! 

Choctaw— W.  F.  Brantley,  W.  H.  Witty,  J.  H.  Edwards 

Chickasaw — J.  A.  Orr,  C.  B.  Baldwin. 

Covington — A.  C.  Powell. 

Calhoun — W.  A.  Sumner,  M.  D.  L.  Stephens. 

DeSoto — J.  R.  Chalmers,  S.  D.  Johnston,  T.  Lewers. 

Franklin — D.  H.  Parker. 

Green — T.  J.  Roberts. 

Hinds— W.  P.  Harris,  W.  P.  Anderson,  W.  B.  Smart, 

Holmes — J.  M.  Dyer,  W.  L.  Keirn. 


s 

Harrison — Di  d  Glenn. 

Hancock — J.  B.  Deason. 
Issaquena— A.  C.  Gibson. 

Itawamba— &.  0.  Becnc;  A.  B.  Bullard,  W.  H.  H.Tison, 
M.  C.  Cnmmings. 
Jasper — 0.  0.  Dease. 
Jackson — A.  E.  Lev 
Jefferson — J.  H.  Johnston, 
Jones — J.  H»  Powell. 
Kemper—  0.  Y.  Neely,  T.  H.  Woods. 
Lawrence — W.  Gvvin. 
Lowndes — George  R.  Clayton. 
Leake— W.  B.  Colbert, 
Lauderdale — J.  B.  Ramsey,  F.  C.  Semmes. 
Lafayette — L.  Q.  C.  Lamar,  T.  D.  Isom. 
Marshall— A.  M.  Clayton,  J.  W.  Clapp,  S.  Benton,  II.  W1 

Walter,  W.  M.  Lea. 
Madison— A.  P.  Hill. 
Monroe — S.  J.  Gholson,  F.  M.  Rogers. 
Marlon — H.  Mayson. 
Noxubee — Israel  Welsh. 
Neshoba— D.  M.  Backstrom* 
Newton— M.  M.  Keith. 
Oktibbeha— T.  C.  Bookter. 
Perry — P.  J.  Myers. 
Pike— J.  M.  Nelson. 
Panola— J.  B.  Fiser,  E.  F.  McGehee. 
Pontotoc — C.  D.  Fontaine,  J.  B.  Herring,  H.  R.  Miller, 

R.  W.  Flournoy. 
Rankin — Wm.  Denson. 
Sunflower — E.  P.  Jones. 
Simpson — W.  J.  Douglas. 
Smith — W.  Thompson. 
Scott— C.  W.  Taylor. 
Tallahatchie — A.  Patterson. 
Tishomingo — A.  E.  Reynolds,  W.  W.  Bonds,  T.  P.  Young,    * 

J.  A.  Blair. 
Tunica — A.  Miller. 
Tippah — 0.  Davis,    J.   H.  Berry,  J.   S.   Davis,  D.  B« 

Wright. 
Washington — J.  S.  Yerger. 
Wilkinson — A.  0.  Holt. 
Wayne — W.  J.  Eckford. 
Warren — W.  Brooke,  T.  A.  Marshall. 
Winston — J.  Kennedy,  W.  S.  Boiling. 
Tallobusha—F.  M.  Aldridge,  W.  R.  Barksdalc- 
Yazoo—R.  Vaughan,  G.  B.  Wilkinson. 


